What is Security BSides

Each Each BSides is a community-driven framework for building events for and by information security community members. The goal is to expand the spectrum of conversation beyond the traditional confines of space and time. It creates opportunities for individuals to both present and participate in an intimate atmosphere that encourages collaboration. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from participants. It is where conversations for the next-big-thing are happening.

BSides’s History

BSides was born out of number of rejections to the CFP for Black Hat USA 2009. A number of quality speakers were rejected, not due to lack of content but lack of space and time. Any constrained system must operate within the bounds to which it has defined itself. Conferences constrain themselves to the eight hours a day for however many days they run. Our goal is to provide people with options by removing those barriers and providing more alternatives for speakers, topics, and events.

Much like Noisebridge, and other hacker spaces, we are a do-ocracy; in other words, if you want it, then you do it or make it happen. We do not have members, but rather participants. You are the “we” and we can only be successful if you make that happen for yourself.

What BSides is not!

BSides does not compete with any other event. The goal has and always will be to expand the spectrum of conversation and enable a greater variety of events. Certainly one can take the business perspective and say that any and every security conference competes with each other, but this would ignore the fact that these events are traditionally FREE and simply offer people another alternative to everything else.
BSides is not the All-Conference-Rejects. Certainly the idea may have sparked after the organizer and others got rejected from a conference submission, but the goal in creating Security BSides is always to enable a greater variety of conversation. We do not want speakers who are talking about the current big thing, we want to find new talent who are discussing the NEXT BIG THING!